There’s already a Daily Show thread running, but I thought this segment from a few days ago deserved a thread of its own. If you missed it, it was basically a report on how often politicians have compared their opponents to Hitler or Nazis lately, and how silly and meaningless it’s become. It seemed kind of like some of the internet (Godwin’s law, and all that…) spilling out into real life, and I thought it was a great segment.
“Stop comparing your political opponents to Hitler. It demeans your opponents, it demeans you, and frankly, it demeans Hitler. You know who was Hitler? Hiter!”
So sad because it’s so funny, just like everything on that show.
I never understood why Godwin limited his law to usenet discussions. People have been making inappropriate Hitler references since well before the internet. Godwin’s law can be applied to any heated discussion, whether on line or IRL.
It makes me wonder what people did before the Nazis.
“Sirrah, your plan to tax Hansom cabs is the sort of thing a Bonapartist would do!”
I think it was just named by someone online and that’s why it stuck. In my opinion the lack of face-to-face communication online brings heated comparisons to Nazism around faster.
Anyway, bravo to TDS on another great line.
Now that’s a great question. Did they use Kaiser Wilhelm?
What’s really irritating is that when a politican really does try to do something fascist (e.g. Alabama legislator Gerald Allens call for the banning and destruction of books by gay authors or books supportive of gay themes), you can’t play the Nazi card because it’s totally devalued.
I heard one of the stupidest Hitler comparisons ever when I worked at McDonald’s. We were selling some Happy Meal toy that was in high demand, so we set a limit on how many a customer could buy. Once during this period an old lady came in wanting to buy a bunch of the toys, but when I told her about the limit she said, “You’re rationing them? That’s Hitler stuff!” I could only stare dumbfounded at her for a few seconds, wondering if she was quite old enough to remember the Holocaust when it first became known, and if so whether she would still utter such a ridiculous statement.
I assume he meant that TDS only asked for a moratorium from both sides when Republicans started using the Hitler comparison (I think Santorum made one recently). IOW, Dems like Byrd and Durbin have making these comparsions for some time, but it didn’t rise to the level of comedy until a Republican did the same thing.
I am, too. But I suspect there was a dramitic rise in Hitler/Nazi references since Bush took office. It probably a safe bet that the Dems have been using it more frequently in the last few years. Republicans are more likely to reference communism in their criticism of Democrats-- and that’s just about as silly.
